Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 18410 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18410 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
Archer twitched, but otherwise didn’t move, didn’t alter his rhythmic breathing. On and on Fosch pulled from his energy, sent it to the binding stones, which in turn awoke the runes, then the sigils – until he began to feel dizzy. He slowed then, knowing if anyone walked in they would find his eyes glowing orange, his hair standing up as if electrocuted, see Archer’s bloody, prone body, see the blood that was beginning to ooze slowly from his nose, his ears, his closed eyes like colored tears, and assume Fosch was performing a ritual attack on his own brother.
Fosch didn’t let this concern him. He kept pushing energy into the stones until they too took on an iridescent glow.
It was working, Fosch thought with hope and renewed adrenaline. He doubled his efforts, felt the world spin once, braced his legs apart for better balance. When the world spun again, he felt Gongo press against his leg, offer some of his energy. Fosch took it, took it all.
For hours he worked, until the center stones floated like mini stars above each rune, and the outer stones orbited around them, never altering from their steady rhythm. Only then did Fosch stop the energy flow, swaying as he pricked a finger, touched a bloodied tip to the blue glowing stone, picked it up before it fell back onto his brother’s body. The red stone – the middle one immediately started to fall, and Fosch snatched it before it hit the middle of the rune again. There was blood and enough energy for Fosch to realize the plague had been both ethereal and corporal, something he’d have to research later on. He placed the binding stones – now glowing madly like colored stars – into the warded pouch Oberon had provided for him, then cleaned his brother up. There was nothing he could do about the small wounds that were left behind from the ritual, but suspicion was a small price his brother would have to pay for his good health.
The clean-up took another hour, another sedative, and by then the sky was beginning to clear. He left no traces of his visit behind, no drop of blood, no symbols, no scents but that of ozone, and the small dash-like wounds he knew Archer would wonder about his entire existence, even after he could no longer see them.
When a fresh wave of dizziness made Fosch stop, brace a hand on the wall to balance himself, Fosch conceded that perhaps he should have confessed his plans to Arianna, since she too could power the runes. Better than him, since she didn’t need to pull energy from herself, but could manipulate lost energy as well, pulling it from the environment . . . into herself, into a work in progress, or just redirect it to wherever she wished. She was a being of energy, out from a planet billions of light years away, and Fosch was glad there were only two others like her. They were dangerous beings, capable of unintentionally killing entire planets – as they had done once when they first fell through the portal. But despite all of Arianna’s faults, she was a loyal creature, one willing to die for those she loved, and Fosch sometimes suspected that Archer might be one of them. Other times He pitied Archer for his love, for he, an outsider to the drama, understood Archer and Arianna would never mate, because they weren’t equals in any way. Although Archer was no weakling, she was stronger than him by leagues. Indeed, Archer was a formidable man, strong, capable, fair and just. He was one of a very few who Fosch admired, respected, called an equal. It was why the knowledge of the plague infecting him hit Fosch the hardest.
Gongo pressed against Fosch’s leg, still invisible, and Fosch sensed his worry and anxiety, so he sent him a reassuring thought.
Nothing a good sleep wouldn’t cure, he told his faithful friend and pushed himself from the wall.
Chapter Three
The Bargain…
It took Fosch a few months and about a dozen other rituals before he had purged the clan entirely from that cursed plague. It had come to be known that those who escaped the plague awoke in the morning exhausted and with three strange scars – which was true – or swore that an angel with huge feathery wings came at night to their windows and stared at them until they had been cured – which Fosch knew was not.
Only three members had died, and only because they had been too stubborn, or afraid to report the symptoms, making it too late to save them. Still, Fosch had tried, had to perform the mercy kills himself.
Those three he grieved for, but such was the way of life. There were those that lived too far for him to reach in time, even skipping dimensions – messages had to cross the ocean by ships, and when a message reached him, it was already too late.